Run the game in 800x600, with dkii -32bitevrything -disablegamma -enablebumpmapping -enablebumpluminance settings and software rendering.

Then it should run just fine in Windows 7. Sounds to me like you expect GoG to have rebuilt the game engine, to be able to run better than it used to. By that I mean supporting graphic cards it never supported, and I do not believe the resolutions above 800x600 was ever meant to be used without hardware rendering.

If they can't make it run on modern systems why then do they advertise it to be compatible with them? That's lying the consumer. If I buy the game here I consider it to run with every feature turned ON. If then the game supports hardware acceleration, I expect it to run in hardware accelerated mode. If they can't make it run stable that way, then they should inform the customers about it and not to count on luck that only few isolated problems will occur.

The most saddening thing is that more and more games published here will use hardware acceleration. If GoG can't get the sources for them then they can't really make any changes to them so people buying will be left with there problems until someone will find a solution here on this forum.

I am hoping to see Syndicate Wars released here soon. I think it will have much the same problem. I already have it working in DosBox, but so far, GoG have managed to make the good old games, run better than I ever made them run myself. Or in some cases they at least saved me lots and lots of time tweaking DosBox settings.

Try this file:
http://keeperklan.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=86

It gives unlimited Zoom. I did see it crash after playing for a few hours, but when playing in other resolutions than 800x600 it seems to crash within 30 min often. But the unlimited zoom really helps I think, since it had a tendency to be unable to zoom out as much as you would like it to.

But the reason why I can forgive GoG for this, is because I know this time was around the time were 3D Fx was introduced, before ATI ever had much say on the game graphics market, and it was while OpenGL was still dominant. There was a war between these manufactures and software developers had no idea who to put their money on.

3DFx seemed to be the winning part, but Direct3D had just been introduced, and was still very new. OpenGL did not even see it as real competition yet if I remember correctly.

And all this makes it very hard to make it fully compatible with all of todays hardware, since it was from the time where you usually had to buy games especially for the graphics card you owned, or you should not expect to see any 3d hardware rendering.

I have tried making DK2 use 3DFx so it might make use of nGlide. But that does not seem possible either. Would be nice to know if there were other engine settings than 2 or 4, and what those settings are supposed to be.

I think maybe I should try running the game in my Windows XP emulator.

DK2 is a D3D app only, no Glide support. That means that without the sources they can't do much. And that's the thing that annoys Me :). That nothing has been done. If only they could recompile the game against DX9, everything would be fine. Without this it will probably never work stable. As for the VM I gave it a try (vmware player) and the game crashes after about 30 to 50 minutes of play which is better than a crash on the start :)

For me it seems to crash more when trying to run it in VMWare. But it does not seem to crash if I just run it in 800x600 in Windows 7, or at least I have only experienced one crash.

Good for you :)

Here's why the complaints are valid, and why GoG is shooting themselves in the foot with releases like this: every one of these games is a cinch to get through alternative, free means. If I want a half-assed copy-paste job of some old game, it's out there for the taking. Or, conversely, I may (as with DK2) already have the game disk.

I'm paying GoG to provide me a DRM-free game that runs in modern operating systems (note: XP is NOT a modern OS) without having to do any tweaks of my own, and without having to disable half the features in order to get it to run. So far, they've been hit and miss, with a couple dogs out there like I'76 and DK2. These two, frankly, should NOT have been released -- just because they can boot doesn't mean they're "compatible".

GoG seriously needs to reconsider their release strategy and the methods they use -- if anything beyond writing a new installer -- to make a game compatible. DK2 is a quick kill-the-DRM, rewrite-the-installer CD dump without any further modification and it shows.

Agreed!

At least just about every other major old EA game that would be released on here is on Dos so this is probably a one time thing.......hopefully.

I too would love to see Alice and the Black and White games but EA may not consider them old enough yet.

It is not missing anything more than 3D acceleration is it? And it is only some types of hardware that cannot run it with 3D acceleration as far as I am aware.

Also I doubt the game was able to run in higher resolutions than 800x600 without 3D acceleration when the game came out.

The issue I had with DK2 before GoG released this, was sound issues, and the sound works great. I can understand why people would want it to work on all machines, and probably would not have wanted them to release the game at all. I have the original CDs as well, but I still got what I wanted from this game. A game that can run on Windows 7 64 bit, although it is without 3D acceleration. Anyone who can share some screenshots to show what exactly it is that is lost with 3D acceleration? As far as I know, the water looks better, and the menu might be smoother, but that should be it.

I know that it is annoying, but the settings that the game is running at right after you install it, are working settings on all machines and OSs as far as I am aware. It is not the first game to have problems either.

As I already stated, it got released around the time where things were in between windows 95 and windows 2000, and gaming hardware, and software were not exactly settled on what would be the standards.

Its interesting that Macs can make it work though. I have a Nvidia Geforce 260, and I cannot make hardware rendering work.

Still, if GoG does not make these things work within a month or so, I would think it best for GoG to compensate the people who ask for it, with a free choice of another game for $6 instead. Getting the money refunded, that would cost GoG more than $6, so I doubt that will happen.

I want to play these "old" games in the best possible way just like I did when they came out.
I see no reason for supporting Gog when they can't even provide this basic service.

Unfortunately, I can get the whole thing to work just fine, at least up to the menu where I select a mission, but for some reason, the mouse won't work. When I move the mouse, it just sort of jiggles in place a bit. Sometimes moving a few inches, but never where I want it. It's as if the game is at 800 x 600 but the mouse things it's at 100 x 100. or something. *shrug*

The game card says Windows 7 (32 & 64bit) compatible again. Did anything change?

I've been playing DK2 as soon as it came out and I've not had one crash or problem - running on Windows 7 64bit.

It's on 800 x 600 resolution admittedly (because apparently any higher and there's problems) but I've not had a problem playing at that resolution.